


imperfections / mending

by KuroFae



Series: i do know two things [5]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Second Person, Trope Bingo Round 14, but it's metaphorical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24684820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuroFae/pseuds/KuroFae
Summary: Your hands are curled up under the points of his shoulder blades, fingertips clutching at his skin like a lifeline. If you cling tight enough; pull yourself against him, maybe you won't shatter along your fault lines. Maybe his flesh and blood and fill the cracks in your own body, and maybe he can protect you from splintering.Sometimes it feels like Night Vale is going to shatter you.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Series: i do know two things [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732459
Comments: 17
Kudos: 32
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	imperfections / mending

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for 'Hurt/Comfort.' See my card [here](https://kurofae.dreamwidth.org/496.html)!

**Kintsugi** (金継ぎ, "golden joinery") or **kinsukuroi** (金繕い, "golden repair"): _The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise._

* * *

"Sometimes," you mumble into his sternum; a thin layer of vascular tissue and bone protecting the vulnerable flutter of his heart, "I don't think you're coming back. After the weather."

Your hands are curled up under the points of his shoulder blades, fingertips clutching at his skin like a lifeline. If you cling tight enough; pull yourself against him, maybe you won't shatter along your fault lines. Maybe his flesh and blood and fill the cracks in your own body, and maybe he can protect you from splintering.

Sometimes it feels like Night Vale is going to shatter you. 

"Back?" He asks, hardly above a whisper. 

You shift; lift up to look at him. He swallows, and his hand falters on the small of your back, like he's resisting the urge to tug you back against his torso, to tether you to him. 

"Back," you say, and you know he knew what you meant the first time. "Sometimes... I think that the music is just going to play into eternity. And that I'll be stuck listening to it, waiting for it to come to an end so I can hear that you're okay. But it's like..." Here you make a gesture in the space between your faces, which means your analogy is inadequate; too scientific; too complex. Because while you have analogy, Cecil has metaphor, and the language barrier frustrates you. "Like tinnitus. Unending. Constant; devastating; a failure of my body's function."

You swallow, heavy. 

"I am..." You struggle, again, to place your intentions and your responsibilities in the right order; to not assign yourself what others have pressed upon you like a bruise, "I am expected to be a protector and a saviour. And - and I _am_ , and I'm still okay. But a scientist is only _usually_ fine. And one day what if I - ?"

You do not finish this hypothetical. Cecil drags his hand down your spine, and you feel yourself shatter; torn apart under his touch; the transform fault lines of your being shifting apart, the ley lines on your soul disintegrating. You can feel your skin torn and your muscles flayed and your bone crushed and splintered under the weight on your shoulders.

You sob, and Cecil holds your broken pieces. 

“I love you,” he says, when you collapse in on him and burrow your face into his neck, mucus and tears and all, “I love you too much to lie to you.”

“I don’t need-” You choke, airway tight, chest heaving, lungs bulging out passed the shattered carnage of your ribs, “It doesn’t need to be okay, it just-”

“It just needs to be,” Cecil finishes, “and _that_ I can promise you, Carlos. I can promise you that what will happen will happen. Our actions afterwards are our own. We can choose to see disaster as a renewal, an opportunity to rebuild. New life from a desecrated corpse. I will be here for you.” He pauses. “Or I may not be. But either way, dear Carlos... Night Vale - and you - will recover.”

Cecil’s words ride the wave of his breath, golden and deep and precious to you. They settle over your torn fragments, fill in the gaps. They mend you, stitch you back together.

“I love you,” Cecil repeats, softer, “And I will for as long as I am here.”

Your blood is golden and warm and you settle over him, let your twin heart beats communicate through the walls of your chests. Cecil runs his hand down your back, and you can feel it catch on the gilded scars of your being. You are broken, and mended, and Cecil loves you, and maybe those last two things are indiscernible from each other.

“You are precious,” Cecil murmurs against your ear, “Beautiful, perfectly imperfect Carlos.”

**Author's Note:**

> I legit did not realize until I was actively writing the last couple lines that "perfectly imperfect" is _literally_ the entire ideology behind kintsugi? (I googled the definition for the beginning of the fic after I finished the actual writing.)
> 
> Anyways. I'm a literary genius. (this is a joke)
> 
> Edit 19-08-2020: changed one Carlos line cause it felt really weird and stiff.
> 
> I have a [tumblr](http://tumblr.com/kurofae) and I make [art](http://tumblr.com/kurofae/tagged/my-art) there!


End file.
